In an interview with Vanessa Mills for Kimberley Mornings, Mr Eggington pointed to the high proportion of young Indigenous people in the State prison system.

"Our young people are just being scooped up and poured into the justice system through this big hole that's getting worse and worse."

He says while the establishment of a new West Kimberley Regional Prison for adult Indigenous offenders is an encouraging move, there needs to be a systemic change to solve the problem.

"We want to keep our kids out of those places in the first place.

I want a complete rethink of how Aboriginal affairs in this State is handled and run.

I want to see huge investments back into our basic family units."

Eggington says he's aware of numerous examples where Aboriginal children are in the prison system for minor offences.

"Attempting to steal an ice-cream, stealing ten hamburger buns... all these sorts of crimes that don't deserve young kids to be held in police custody, the court, then locked up in a detention centre."

A recent report from the Inspector of Custodial Services, Neil Morgan, points to a trend where Aboriginal people are also less likely to be classified as minimum security.

"Despite a significant rise in the number of Aboriginal People in the prison system as a whole, there has been virtually no increase in the number at minimum security.

By contrast, the number of non-Aboriginal people at minimum security has increased sharply."

In his report, Inspector of Custodial Services, Neil Morgan, suggests the Department of Corrective Services needs to assess why this is the case.

"If Aboriginal people are not accessing minimum security in sufficient numbers, the benefits of these facilities are not reaching a priority target group and public investment is not being maximised."

Dennis Eggington agrees.

"The majority of our people that are in prisons and in lock ups are for minor offences against property, they're not serious offences against a person."

"Our jails are overflowing with First Nations people... the criminal justice system for our people is just at crisis breaking point and it can't go on.